Murder in the Meth Lab?

What began as a supposedly routine search of this single-wide in the Tennessee woods took a terrible turn when one cop shot his partner dead. Was it just a tragic accident—or was it premeditated, cold-blooded murder?

Marty says he was scared real bad when it happened, and he says that’s why it happened, too, on account of him being scared so bad. He says he was afraid he was going to die, afraid a man with a shotgun was coming into that little bathroom to blow a hole right through him, splatter him all over the walls.

Scared crapless. That’s exactly what Marty Carson says he was.

Marty had been a deputy in Scott County for nine years, since his daddy, Jim Carson, got elected sheriff back in ’94, and he’d been the drug officer for three years, which was an important job because there were a lot of drugs in the hills of east Tennessee. The usual stuff, weed and coke and pills, but mostly methamphetamine, stewed up in single-wides and sheds from cold medicine and match packs and road flares and lye. Got to be routine, taking out meth labs, there were so many of them. And Marty had never been afraid of dying in one, either, but that’s probably because he’d never gotten himself cornered in a bathroom by a meth head with a shotgun before.

The thing is, Marty says he didn’t even want to be in that trailer on Williams Creek Road, coming up on 8 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving 2003. Sure, there was supposed to be a fugitive inside and maybe he’d be gone by morning, but you hit a meth lab after dark and you’re liable to get stuck there until dawn, taking statements and securing the scene and waiting for the state techs to drive three hours from Nashville to pack up the chemicals. Odds are, the sun’s coming up by the time you clock out. It was cold that night, too, starting to snow.

Marty says he wanted to wait for daylight.

Marty says his partner, Sergeant John Yancey, wanted the overtime.

Marty says this whole thing was John Yancey’s idea.

So four deputies, Marty and John and Donnie Phillips and Carl Newport, drove to the trailer, a ratty crackerbox with wobbly porches tacked to the front and back. Donnie and Carl stayed out front, watching the door on that side, while John and Marty went around back. The owner, a young junkie named Ryan Clark, was standing in the backyard. John asked if the deputies could search his place—“knock and talk,” cops call it, because you don’t need a -warrant if the owner lets you inside. Marty didn’t wait for Ryan to say no. He climbed the back porch and banged on the door. A woman answered. She let him in.

From the threshold, Marty looked to his right, down a narrow hallway less than eight feet long. A bedroom door at the end was closed, but Marty could see light and shadows through the gaps around the jamb, saw a flicker and heard a shuffle, someone moving on the other side. He pulled out his gun. “Sheriff’s department,” he said. “Come out. You need to come out now.”

That’s when Marty says things went bad.

He says he heard a woman screaming at him from the bedroom—Get out! Get out! He’s got a gun. He’s going to kill you, he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill us all!—and then a noise like a shotgun racking.

Marty says he hollered out the door to Donnie and Carl and John, “Don’t come in! He’s got a gun!” Yet Marty didn’t retreat from the trailer or take cover or even step out of the line of fire. Instead, he took two steps toward the bedroom, toward the man with the gun. Then he says the door swung open and he saw, backlit by the lights from his Jeep shining through the window, the silhouette of a man holding a shotgun.

Marty says he sidestepped into the bathroom, lights off, dark as midnight, and had to feel his way to the back wall. He turned to face the doorway, Glock still out, held chest high with his finger on the trigger.

Marty says he believed the man in the bedroom with the shotgun was extremely dangerous. Marty says he believed that man was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Marty says he believed that because a snitch had told him so. One of John’s snitches, matter of fact. That’s what Marty says. Didn’t know his name, though. Only Mark something. Earlier that night, the deputies thought it might be a local named Mark New, but they’d pulled his mug shot before going to the trailer. Weighed a lot more; hair different color, shorter length; things of that sort. We knowed right then it was not a guy named Mark New we were looking for.

Marty says he saw what looked like the barrel of a shotgun easing into the doorway. I thought I was being overtaken by the suspect. I felt he was fixing to come around through there and blow me plumb back through the bathroom.

Marty fired one round. He says he aimed at the empty space in the center of the doorway because that’s where he expected the suspect to be by the time the bullet traveled eight feet from his gun.

Then Marty says he heard John Yancey say, “Help me. I’m shot.”

John was shot?

Marty says he never saw John, never even knew he was in the trailer. So who shot him? Was it the man with the shotgun? Marty says he didn’t know. Marty says he was scared so bad he couldn’t hear straight.